Welcome to the American Story. Stories about what it is that makes America beautiful.

Heartbreaking, funny, inspiring, and endlessly interesting.

This is Chris Flannery with the Clermont Institute.

I call this one a decent respect.

The real American Revolution, as John Adams said, took place in the minds and hearts of the American people in the years leading up to 1776.

This revolution of thought gave birth to a revolution of words and deeds, and revolutionary

thought, word, and deed together became the American founding.

A human event unsurpassed in the history of the world.

With the aid of the divine source of all blessings, this founding remains eternally the

earthly source of all America's blessings of liberty.

It is also America's eternal earthly measure of itself.

So long as there are to be Americans in the world, the American founding must take place again and again in the minds, hearts, and lives of succeeding generations.

The wisdom, justice, courage, and moderation of the founders is always there for us to make

our own. We need only ask and we shall receive. Listen and we shall hear.

Once small but the essential part of that founding was the thought the

Revolutionaries expressed in the Declaration of Independence,

that a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires

that the Americans should declare the causes which impel them to their revolution. Declaring the causes of their actions, giving reasons for them,

was an act of respect for the opinions of mankind

because it treated mankind as if their opinions could respond to reasons.

This was a hopeful view of the human condition.

It did honor to human nature and imposed expectations on human capacities.

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